


a story or two on the way down

by cptsuke



Series: stories from the same routine [6]
Category: The Losers (Comic), The Losers - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-24
Updated: 2016-07-25
Packaged: 2018-07-26 10:48:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7571302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cptsuke/pseuds/cptsuke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Afghanistan to SanSalvador and back to Afghanistan, Pooch has got stories.<br/>Most of them he can even tell his kids. ...well, surely there's at least one story he can tell his kids.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Hilariously there was a brief moment when I thought I could post this with no warnings.
> 
> highly recommend you read the rest of this series first, as this story skips from event to event without a lot of explanation.

The story that Pooch hated Jensen at first sight is a gross overstatement.

 

Annoyed? Resentful? More than little wary? Sure, but Pooch didn't know the kid well enough for hate.

 

(they sorted their differences out over the year following their somewhat disastrous first meeting, Jensen bribing Pooch's already good nature with favors and boons that Pooch has never had the heart to tell the tech that his initial scepticism would have worn away with time anyway.)

 

Pooch is a fair man and Jensen is good at his job; not afraid to think outside the box – is more likely to have never actually thought _inside_ the box to be honest – and seems as equally keen to keep them all alive as rest of the team. The fact that he annoys Roque and makes Cougar's playful asshole-ish-ness come out is just a bonus at this point.

 

 

But the story remains and like any good soldier's story,

 

(a 38 hour gunfight is just a shit day at work – a girl that smiles vaguely in someone's directions warps into a sordid, sinful sexcapade that only confession will absolve – Roque's missing week of kidnapping and subsequent torture described with a quiet, dismissive _it was what it was_.)

 

the tale could only be relayed with extreme under or over exaggeration.

 

God forbid any of them were ever actually completely honest.

 

All in all, Pooch has gotten quite fond of the tall fucker. He likes the way he makes Roque worry – likes the way Roque hates that he cares – likes that he makes Cougar smile small crooked smiles, like he doesn't what his mouth is doing or why – and Pooch definitely likes the way Jensen can make Clay speechless, blinking, mouth chewing on silence as he eventually decides that he doesn't even want to know What The Fuck.

 

Likes all that and more, but still doesn't quite get what makes Jensen tick.

 

The kid's a study in contradictions. Weak hearted and callous often in the same breath. Interchanging childish and world weary between each heartbeat. Caring – caring too goddamned much if Pooch is honest – but hiding a particularly cutting mean streak.

 

 

 

In Afghanistan Jensen takes a bullet meant for Pooch.

 

It's not their first foray into the sandbox, it's not even likely to be their last ,and though this Afghanistan has Roque sadly lacking his pink diamante accented uniform, the Pooch still holds out hope. The tour is young yet and while they're all a little bit older, Jensen's antics haven't waned with the passing time. In fact it seems almost as if the extra year of experience has been used less to mature and more for Jensen to find newer, more creative ways of fucking with people.

 

Jensen getting shot is nothing so absurd as him standing up in front of Pooch like a well meaning meat shield, but still, it happens.

 

It's in the early hours, past midnight, with moon bright enough to light the still night a pale but murky indigo.

 

They get split up early, gunfire and grenades ambushing what was supposed to be an easy midnight stroll. The plan to rendezvous up with one of the marine companies bunked down supposedly somewhere in their vicinity quickly goes out the window for Pooch. He finds himself heading in the wrong direction, giving up a quick route in favor of not getting noticed and shot by the militants that are now roving the streets looking for him and his.

 

Pooch's luck takes him to where he is now.

 

And really it wasn't so bad, but thenhis gun jams and as he swears betrayed curses at his hardware, and Pooch's cover starts to look as protective as a slice of bread under the constant gunfire.

 

At the time he's not really thinking in terms of I AM GOING TO DIE if he's honest – a thing he will never tell Joelene – his last moments would've most likely have been spent thinking up creative ways to yell FUCK YOU at his gun. Pooch's guns don't fucking _jam_.

 

But Pooch doesn't die like that, because one moment the bullets around him are hitting the masonry _behind_ Pooch's cover and the next a thrown-too-short grenade goes off in the middle of the current no man's land.

 

Pooch holds the dubious honor of grenade throwing champion, he could've told who ever was throwing them that the distance was too far; in fact the only good thing about the distance is they're aren't that good of shots. A point, Pooch has to admit, hasn't been overly helpful with the sheer amount of lead they're putting in the air. Law of averages says at least no less than two bullets must have Pooch's name on them. He's resigning himself to that fact when the exploding grenade is followed up with gunfire, coming from his side, and pounding at the enemy's cover.

 

It's certainly capturing their attention, if the sudden lull of the not so slow disintegration of Pooch's cover is anything to go by.He takes the moment to catch his breath – to swear some more as he tries to unjam his piece of shit gun – and gets a glimpse of Jensen.

 

Not quite out of cover - _not quite fucking all but showing his ass to the unfriendlies_ – Jensen's still further out in the open that would probably be advised in a rifleman's handbook. But he's attention diverting - his precarious position most likely out of desperation to get Pooch out of the shit before his cover completely falls apart – which Jensen's succeeded at with flying  colors if the high pitched yelp and flailing back behind cover as a volley of particularly well aimed shots come at him.

 

Pooch doesn't quite look at the sky and question a high authority but, god help him, Jensen sounds amused, like he's having fucking _fun_.

 

To be fair, he probably is.

 

Okay. Pooch maybe takes a moment to look at the sky.

 

With the luxury of another shooter there's enough of a lull for Pooch to find decent cover and finally get his gun unjammed; Jensen's disembodied laugh had sounded everytime he heard Pooch speaking calmly to his gun, well, he's creative swearing at the top of his lungs but he's mostly deaf from gunfire so it all evens out really.

 

Between the two of them they soon turn what had been a rather unfairly matched gunfight into a stalemate that makes the hours stretch long.

 

The sand in Pooch's eyes feels a thousand times worse now the heaviness of exhaustion is weighing down on his eyelids; but the sun's coming up, the rest of their team should be closing in on their position and Jensen still looks like he's taking hourly adrenaline injections.

 

His ammo stock is starting to look meager and if the way Jensen's slowed his bursts down to quality not quantity, he's sitting the in the same shitty boat.

 

One way or another, this'll end soon enough.

 

The cavalry comes as the first rays of direct sunlight start burning away the night's chill, effectively breaking up the stalemate and the hand signal argument he and Jensen had been having for a good while about the best way to pull back and get the fuck out of there.

 

Pooch's hand freezes in the air mid counter argument as the beautiful _crack_ of a high powered rifle echoes loudly in the courtyard. Jensen's grinning when Pooch looks, teeth glowing in the dawn's gloom, Pooch feels himself grinning back. With an armed Cougar in a high place, no god were necessary.

 

Soon they've got the added cover of a humvee and a good platoon of marines eager to shoot things, so Pooch and Jensen leave them to it, riding the adrenaline high as it drops and waiting for Cougar to come down from wherever he'd been nesting.

 

Now that the excitement is ebbing, Pooch just feels uncomfortable. He stinks of sweat, sand feels like its got into just about every part of him and there's a wet stain on his knee that would probably disgust him if he had any fucks left to give. A quick glance at Jensen reveals he's just as stained, dirty and out of fucks to give.

 

But the moment of exhilaration doesn't last, one moment the tech's smiling - tired but pleased – the next he seems to blank out, a total loss of power and it's only Roque's quick reflexes that keep him from falling in a heat on the dirt.

 

It's just for a second, not even ten seconds later Jensen's blinking at them, feet back under him and trying to shake off the grip Roque has on his collar.

 

“You okay?” Pooch asks, placing steadying hand on Jensen's chest, and frowning at his too fast breathing.

 

Jensen just frowns, mouth twisting with distaste. “What the hell was that?”

 

“That?” Roque snaps. “That was you trying to faint, princess.”

 

“Faint? I don't,” Jensen pauses, face screwing up as he presses a hand on a particularly dark stain just above his hip, and then whines. “Ow.”

 

Pooch doesn't think Jensen even realized he'd been hit, that doesn't stop Roque from giving Jensen's collar a shake as he ask-shouts, “What the fuck? Are you hit?”

 

Jensen's hand half heartedly bats at Roque's but most of his attention is focused downwards.

 

“What the fuck?” He asks, echoing Roque. “Stupid goddamn armor, you had one fucking job.”

 

He's okay, a little weak in the knees if the way he keeps leaning on Roque is any indication – but he could also just be enjoying the fact that Roque's refusing to let him fall in a weird angry-caring kind of way. It's almost sweet.

 

Pooch kneels beside them as Roque props Jensen up again while yelling for a Corpsman. The bullet looks like it hit the bottom of his armor and ricocheted down. Hasn't hit any major arteries, he guesses, going by the fact that Jensen didn't bled out hours ago.

 

“You didn't feel this?”

 

“Thought my armor caught it.” Jensen shrugs, all but draping himself on Roque now, who looks like he's seriously considering dumping him on the ground.

 

“Well it didn't.” Roque snarls with another shake of Jensen's collar.

 

Jensen's retort is lost as a Cougar arrives with a soft laugh for the scene in front of him.

 

Clay finally arrives, just after the Corpsman finishes his field dressing, already grumbling about paperwork. While Cougar gets in close, looking like he wanted to press his hands against the wound and patch it up himself, never mind how good of a job the Corpsman had done.

 

“Be gentle, Cougar, I took this saving a beautiful Pooch in distress.” Jensen proclaims loudly.

 

“See, all I remember is you flailing like a mad man, while I got business _done_.” Pooch cuts in before Cougar can start thinking this is in any way The Pooch's fault.

 

“ _Tactical_ flailing!” Jensen snipes back in a faux-offended voice; like Pooch had missed Tactical Flailing day in bootcamp.

 

Clay starts rubbing his forehead like he's going to start muttering _he's too old for this shit_ and Pooch doesn't know what his problem is, not like he spent all night having to deal with AK fire _and_ Jensen's truly atrocious hand signals. (No. 'T-Rex hands' was not a sign, nor did it signify anything, let a lone 'a short but massive show of strength', _Jensen_ )

 

But Jensen grins at him, teeth shining in the early morning light, “Can we go home now, boss?”


	2. SanSalvador

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> extra warning for the shortness of this fic & probable incoherence.

Pooch is not a fan of working in the Americas. Not anymore. They've had too many close calls and - _fuck_ – Santa Maria cracked the team like he didn't think anything truly could.

 

He definitely doesn't want to be working here, what with Jensen giving Cougar baleful looks when he wasn't looking, and Cougar's growing inability to not go off mission as soon as things went in a way he didn't like.

 

Fuck but Pooch missed how ridiculously close Jensen and Cougar could be. He can remember how Jensen's face had fell as he watched Cougar walk off without a second word to any of them, after Santa Maria. 

 

The two of them were so tied up in each other that there could be no clean break, no matter how much they pretended otherwise. Pooch tries not to think about what will happen to the team if they don't sort themselves out.

 

There's a lot of thing Pooch doesn't think about. One of those things is the months long absence of Cougar and Jensen. When their little side trip/mission had gone sideways and they disappeared.

 

Pooch doesn't think about that time much.

 

Not of Jensen's overly gleeful face or the quiet smirk on Cougar's when they shipped out.

 

Doesn't think about the months of silence with Clay's stress lines taking up permanent residence as he went from meeting to meeting – looking more and more defeated with each passing day. Pooch doesn't think about Roque prowling around the base like a caged rabid animal, ready to lash out at anyone that looked at him sideways. Pooch split his knuckles on the bastard's skull one particularly shitty day, and then sat in silence as they patched each other up afterwards, feeling the absence their two missing brothers more than ever.

 

Pooch doesn't think about how much time he'd spent in the motor pool, fixing what he could, his head buried in engines for so long that the grease monkey's had taken to bringing him meals.

 

He definitely doesn't think about when they finally – _finally_ – came back. Alternating between too quiet and too loud. Doesn't think about how long it took for the tension to slowly drain from Jensen's shoulders, for him to stop looking one false move away from starting a knock down, drag out fight. Doesn't think about Cougar's dead eyed look – so damned similar to the one he'd worn years ago when Clay had poached him from an even shadier black ops team – weeks passed before he finally stopped looking like he was expecting an interrogation – the sort that SERE tried to prep them for - whenever someone spoke to him.

 

So. Yeah. There's a lot of things Pooch doesn't think about. But if there's one thing he can remember without bitterness, one thing he can remember among all the things he pretends to have forgotten, it's that Jensen and Cougar had dragged each other kicking and screaming through to the end of the whole thing. They'd kept each other alive and functional enough to patch themselves up afterwards. They were a team no matter much they were currently acting like wronged three year olds right now. Pooch may or may not be so done with their shit, but he held on hope that they'd eventually remember that they were better -stronger – together. _Eventually_ these assholes were going to make up or Pooch was going to knock them both out and lock them in a bathroom til they sorted their shit out. And goddamn, when did Pooch become their main cheerleader? God, maybe he was getting too old for this shit.

 

So until Cougar and Jensen sorted out their bullshit, Pooch was convinced the team should straight up boycott the Americas.

 

No offence to Cougar, or when Cougar and Jensen used to have their stupid Mexican Holiday Bonanzas – Jensen's words – but the continent hadn't been kind to him and his, and Pooch didn't survive this long by not trusting his gut. Whenever they get the call that it ain't done with them yet, all Pooch is left is a bad taste in his mouth, like bile building up, the sort of unease one got just before stumbling upon a mass grave. _Man_ , Pooch would love to say he'd not done that more than once. Fuck this world.

 

This time isn't any different. Pooch doesn't exactly whine per say when he finds out their destination is San Salvador, but he does find himself making some _whine-esque_ noises that might have been more at home coming from Jensen's mouth.

 

It's their first time back in country since the bullshit that was Santa Maria, Roque still looks like he is visibly stopping himself from putting Clay's head on a spike every time the Colonel says something he doesn't like, and Cougar and Jensen are still on outs whilst pretending that everything is totally a-okay. Now it's all long looks when the other isn't looking and moody silences when they're forced to share a space. That's all the red flags Pooch's gut needs to know he hates this fucking mission already.

 

A hazy SOP, and vague hurry up and waiting mission parameters, well, they're just added gravy at this point.

 

But they're all supposed to be sitting tight, set up in a house that's actually not a shithole, Cougar keeping watch on their HV target while Clay waits for his Hold order to turn into a sweet green light. It's _boring_ and frustrating and a serious misuse of their skills, surely there was a lone CIA sniper who could have done this with 90 per cent less manpower. But they're here and Pooch has caught up with this year's worth of The Walking Dead and he's just about thinking he can maybe put this south american trip in the win column.

 

 

It does go all fuck up eventually, but for the moment Pooch has a spot just out of the sun to chill while he watches Clay through the large sliding glass door, on the phone to whoever's holding their leash these days. Roque's making angry additions if the force his fingers stabbing at the map stretched out in front of them is any indicator. Cougar's still dark – holed up somewhere with eyes on target – and Jensen is stretched out in the sun like he's not going to burn lobster red, phone out, an ear piece in listening to Clay's conversation with only the occasional nasty smirk.

 

He's getting too old for this, Pooch thinks watching Clay's face go from eye rolling annoyance to reddening anger. He and Jolene should settle down somewhere quiet without alligators in the backyard, and have a football team worth of little Jolenes and Pooches. Live out the rest of his life in the good sort of chaotic peace.

 

“I don't think Jolene would sign up for having that many kids.” Jensen doesn't even look up from his phone; his face the intense concentration that comes from either hacking something important or trying to pass a particularly annoying level of candy crush.

 

“Shut up Jensen.” The Pooch would like to continue his griping without interruptions, thankyou, but Jensen is far from finished.

 

“Could you imagine the food bill when they turned into teenagers?!”

 

“Shut up Jensen.”

 

“And the house would be so full I'd never be able to crash on your couch.”

 

“Jensen..”

 

“Don't leave me, Pooch,” Jensen's begging now, one ear still on what's sounding like it's turning into a screaming match, but a good percentage of his attention on play acting a desperate man. “Pooch, don't leave me alone with these bastards!”

 

“Jensen.”

  
“Shut up?” Jensen sure sounds sheepish, but he's the worst sort of faker so Pooch just finger guns at him with a dry 'Got it in one.'

 

Jensen shrugs and lets the conversation die out with a muttered 'Jolene would let me sleep on your couch even if you had _thirty_ kids', Pooch mentally gives him that point because his wife sure does have a soft spot their hacker. He'd wonder about it but between Jensen's baby face and Jolene's soft touch, he's not surprised she took him in under her wing. The fact that they blow up something nearly every time they get together is something Pooch is going to blissfully ignore til the day he dies.

 

 

Clay's yelling eventually winds down, the argument apparently not ending in a satisfactory manner from the way he slams the hand piece down. Roque looks vaguely not unhappy, which is a nice change of pace, but Jensen's scowl has gone from _fuck candy crush who the fuck invented this bullshit_ to _serious business_ and Pooch's nerves light up in anticipation.

 

“Hey, boss?” Jensen calls out even as he's sliding the door open with a foot, arms full of delicately balanced hardware. “Cougar report in yet?”

 

Jensen's asking like it's not a big deal, but he's settling himself down in front of his main setup sprawled across the breakfast bar. Roque answers with a negative – not since two hours ago when their mission looked closer to being shut down than anything else – and Jensen goes back to glaring at his comms equipment.

 

Pooch has his car keys in his hand before he even knows if he has a place to go. Shutting down the building worry in favor of rolling the keys around in his palm, ready and prepared for whatever's coming.

 

“Corporal?”

 

“It's a little static-y.” Jensen's not paying much attention to Clay, sliding his laptop across the countertop, fingers typing faster than Pooch can read, and mumbling to himself. “Interference? Shouldn't be. Not where. He wouldn't. Ugh. Maybe?”

 

“Corporal?” Clay interrupts Jensen's muttering, trying to get a sitrep so he can decide how much shit has hit the fan.

 

“I don't think,” He pauses, mouth twisting unhappily, than instead of answering Clay he tries to call up Cougar over the radio. “Charlie Two-Three, Charlie Two-Three, Cougar you reading me?”

 

Only static answers.

 

“Jensen!” Clay puts some serious commanding tone into his voice, something that Jensen might often laugh off, but not right now. Now he's deadly serious, glancing quickly to Clay before continuing his fine tuning.

 

“There's too much static.” He's full on angry glaring at the radio now, taking the static as a personal affront. “He's moved. He's got to have.”

 

“He wouldn't.” Roque bites out because even when Cougar is trying to out-asshole him he still thinks the best of him.

 

Pooch gives Roque his best R _eally? Fucking really?_ look, something that he's pretty sure Jensen is copying if the snort of disgust he hears from the tech is any indication. Roque sighs, as good as a surrender in these circumstances.

 

“Where?” Clay asks.

 

“I don't know.” Jensen says, defeat in every word, his furious typing not giving him any more information than he already has. Cougar's off mission – is it really off mission if he's probably merely doing the job they were sent here to do? - he's not answering his comms and Jensen can't find him.

 

No matter how much Jensen calls, the radio stays quiet on Cougar's end, that is, until twenty minutes later when the radio crackles to life with a single word.

 

“ _Jensen_.”

 

The name barely sounds like a word through all the static, but they all recognize Cougar's voice. Jensen's hands make minute adjustments, his face hard and as tense as Pooch feels. They all listen to the static-y silence, straining to hear _something_. Finally – _finally_ – a single word comes through, mostly garbled and the sound of shouting - shooting? - something loud all but drowning it out.

 

“ _Problema_.”

 

 

 

They don't hear anything afterwards. The radio goes completely dead and Clay yells a lot. Roque shouts some choice words back and Jensen yells _shut the fuck up_ at least three times before Pooch herds them across the room to where they can yell at each other over the map, and maybe stop distracting Jensen so much. Especially when he's the one most like make the best guess at Cougar's position.

 

Jensen does come up with something, just as Clay's about to drive off with guns loaded and cocked. The area Jensen's pointing vaguely at isn't anywhere near to where Cougar was supposed to be watching the druglord.

 

 _And if he's gone off solo_ , Clay reasons in a tone that says Jensen has probably lost what little sense he had, _he'd surely be going after this asshole._

 

Jensen argues, but it devolves quickly into vague _I think? Maybe?_ noises that Clay obviously doesn't expect to bear fruit because he sends just Pooch and Jensen to check out the tech's hunch while he and Roque follow up on their guess.

 

“Need a goddamned tracker on his stupid fucking ass!” Jensen yells as he slams the door. “Make him eat a GPS.”

 

“I'll help.” Pooch offers before putting the car into drive and asking, “Which way?”

 

“Head north,” Jensen's chewing on his bottom lip in an uncharacteristic show of indecision. “I only got a vague, maybe triangulation. So we're gonna be fishing.”

 

“I love being bait.” Pooch says with a smile he doesn't feel, but the one he receives back is something similar so he don't feel too bad about his lack of enthusiasm.

 

 

 

They must be getting close to _somewhere_ Pooch decides after about twenty minutes of driving, the streets are looking emptier than they should this time of day, and he's starting to get that anxious feeling that tells him something's about to go down. His sixth sense isn't wrong as no sooner do they turn up the next street then something slams into the side of their car.

 

Adrenaline pumps in and threatens to blindside him but Pooch keeps the wheel steady, pulling the car back under control as his legs twinge and ache with the need to _run_ even though he's driving and biology made no goddamn sense. A second car knocks them completely askew as the first car struggles to catch up and Pooch spins the wheel to compensate for the sudden direction change. He manages to just get it back under control when the first car slams into them again.

 

Adrenaline slows time down, Jensen's knuckles are bone white where he's bracing himself, his face a mask of determination like he can _think_ his way out of the oncoming impact, but his teeth are showing in something that's not quite a grin but not quite _not_ one either, and then there's a power pole that stands tall and unforgiving, and they're sliding towards it, and they're definitely going to hit.

 

They hit it.

 

Glass showers everywhere but it's a long moment before Pooch comes back to reality, head resting against the steering wheel with the beginning of a welt making itself known on his forehead. The first thought he has is _I'm glad this car doesn't have airbags_ , his second is _I wish this car had fucking airbags_ because his brain seems rattled and still mostly offline.

 

“Well,” Jensen says but adds nothing as upbeat pop music blares ridiculously from the car's speakers. To Pooch's left one of their aggressor's car's radiators hisses in a decidedly broken manner.

 

Pooch turns his head to blink at Jensen. He looks okay, which Pooch was worried about, the impact being on his side. But luckily – yes _, lucky –_ the pole seems to have smashed into the back passenger door. Jensen's blinking, dazed but not damaged like he might have been if they'd hit the pole where he was sitting.

 

“Well,” Jensen says again and Pooch can tell he's coming back to himself because the next moment Jensen's gun is up and shooting at a guy that was closing in on the car. Teeth and fleshy parts of red shower everywhere before the man drops out of sight.

 

“Well.” Jensen says for a final time.

 

“Hope that wasn't a good samaritan.” Pooch mumbles into the steering wheel and it's fair to say that maybe he hit his head harder than a doctor might advise.

 

Jensen laughs a truly inappropriate noise of amusement but it turns to a yelp as the downed man's friends open fire.

 

“Nope!” Jensen yells as he hunkers down – bullets pinging everywhere - though whether he's confirming the dead man's non-civvie allegiances or just giving his general thoughts on their present situation Pooch isn't sure.

 

Maybe both.

 

Probably both.

 

Pooch's M4 is still where he left it despite their sudden sideways journey and just as sudden stop, which he chooses to take as a good omen no matter that people are currently shooting at them and cheap sedans aren't historically built of bullet proof material. The butt smacks him in the jaw as he maneuvers it up and out the window to let off a burst of fire in what he hopes is the general direction of the people who are shooting at them.

 

“I guess we're in the right place!” Jensen shouts, tiny pieces of shattered glass flying in every direction as he shakes his head.

 

“Can you get out?” Pooch yells back, over the noise, the majority of the fire seems to be coming from his side of the car. The quick glance he got, looks like they've formed a semi-circle on Pooch's side, boxing them in.

 

“Gonna be Dukes Of Hazarding it, but yeah, I guess!” Jensen yells back, then adds a snide, “Wouldn't have to if _some_ _fucking jerkass sniper_ _got his fucking head out of his ass for once!”_

 

“Really?” Pooch demands, “You're gonna be an asshole about it now? _Right now?_ ”

 

“Oh,  _I'm_ the asshole?” Jensen snaps back. “Fuck you Pooch, you don't even – no. You know what? Just fucking cover me, I ain't having this fucking conversation.”

 

“You fucking started it.” Pooch mumbles but whatever Jensen replies is lost in the _booms_ of Pooch's rifle as he lays down enough covering fire for Jensen to try and get out.

 

It's a very effective conversation ender, even if it probably didn't have a lot of real world applications.

 

Jensen's a wily little shit, Pooch thinks, to get his six foot frame up and out of the car so quickly that by the time Pooch glances back he's almost completely gone from sight. Just a waving hand and an easy as you please ' _Throw me my rifle when you get the chance my good Poochman'._

 

Pooch slides down low as returning fire starts up again, leaning across the center console to retrieve Jensen's rifle from where it's jammed between seat and gearbox.

 

 

With Jensen out and able to fully move and maneuver, it doesn't doesn't take them long to suppress the attackers long enough to get Pooch out of the car.

 

With a bit of tactical firing they managed to move to the second car, the one whose radiator isn't bent up like a pretzel, with only few men left shooting at them.

 

Pooch ducks behind the open car door as bullets start flying in his direction again, starts to pop back up to fire back and pauses.

 

The keys are still in the ignition.

 

Beside him Jensen returns fire, oblivious. Pooch reaches across and twists the keys and the car purrs to life like Pooch is the chosen one.

 

Jensen ducks down beside him, and looks at Pooch looking at him.

 

“Let's grand theft auto this shit.” Pooch announces just to see Jensen's face light up like a christmas tree.

 

Jensen puts up an impressive amount of covering fire - enough for Pooch to climb into the car - and moments later the two of them have left their attackers in the metaphorical dust, back on the way to try and find their missing buddy.

 

 

Jensen tries to call Clay up on the comms now they're pretty sure that they're in the right place, but the static that had cut them off from Cougar now cuts them off too. Jensen swears pretty impressively at it before they both silently agree to keep going. To turn back now would sign Cougar's death warrant.

 

They drive in silence for a long while – just heavily breathing, Pooch driving, Jensen reloading their rifles – until Jensen speaks up with an apology.

 

“Sorry about the whole Cougar bitching.” Jensen actually looks so shamefaced that Pooch is rendered silent for a moment.

 

“Man, I get it,” Pooch says finally, “You got your shit.”

 

Jensen's mouth twists like he wishes he hadn't brought the subject up.

 

“And you gotta let it out some time.” Pooch offers a fist for bumping as he finishes with, “But not right now.”

 

“Let's just get him back.” Jensen says, bumping his fist against Pooch's and turning his attention to the streets ahead of them.

 

“Let's get him back.” Pooch echoes even though he's starting to feel like maybe they're driving into the lion's den without backup.

 

 

 

They ditch the car pretty quickly after they've made sure no one's following them; deciding they can keep hidden on foot better than they managed in a car.

 

They've got a pretty good field of view, nearly the highest spot in the area that Jensen's ninety-eight per cent sure Cougar could be in, and the neighborhood is laid basically laid out for them from their current vantage spot.

 

Jensen stops so suddenly that Pooch almost runs into him. He straightens up, looking pretty seriously at the sprawling building that's maybe a block or two down from where they are.

 

“That look like a drug lord's compound to you?”

 

“Yes it does.”

 

“Let's ninja this shit.”

 

 

 

 

They're sort of sneaking. The compound is too big to clear properly, too many paramilitary types ready to shoot anything that moves, and there's only the two of them with limited ammo, so they're going full on ninja, with knives at the ready.

 

They want to be in and out before someone realizes they're here and gets the bright idea to use Cougar as a shield, or worse, put a bullet in his head.

 

So they're trying to avoid that outcome with a little bit of finesse, a fair bit of speed and a whole lot of force on anyone they came across.

 

 

“We're stealing that hummer on the way out.” Jensen says, beating Pooch to it, as they quietly make their way through the garage.

 

 

Jensen brings back his T-Rex hand signal as they lay in wait, barely hidden from a duo of guards patrolling the hall they needed to get pass. They're on high alert – everyone's mad as fucking hornets which is no doubt Cougar's handiwork – but these guys seem to be low level if the amount of bitching they're doing is any indicator.

 

Jensen tenses beside Pooch as one of them complains about wanting in on 'the action' and the other makes the suggestion that they go down and offer their services on the _hijo de puta_. With that Jensen moves.

 

“T-REXES AREN'T THAT FAST!” Pooch yells as he follows.

 

Jensen's jumped the gun a bit, the guards further away than Pooch's knees would like but he still crosses the distance faster than his guy's reaction time, slamming into him before he gets his rifle lifted. Pooch's knife catches him in the chest, the man gurgling on his last breaths before Pooch has the chance to ask 'where's Cougar' or 'Would you spare a moment of your time to hear about our Lord and savior Jesus Christ?'

 

“Fuck you Pooch, T-Rexes are fast as fuck!” Jensen argues back, accentuating the claim with a strong punch to his still alive captive's face, his fist hard where it wrapped around his knife's handle. “ _Donde esta 'hijo de puta_ '?”

 

The man starts sputtering his lack of knowledge, he's throwing in a few _no entiendos_ when Jensen screams _DONDE!?_ punctuating the question with a stabbing punch that drives his knife in and out of the man's shoulder.

 

“ _Donde_?” He asks again - quieter, colder – as the man's scream ends, knife hovering over his torso for extra incentive.

 

The man starts talking, _fast_. Jensen must miss some of the rapid fire Spanish because he looks back to Pooch, waits for his nod of _'yeah, I got it'._ As soon as Pooch nods Jensen's face twists into a rageful look that would look more at home on Roque and he jams the knife upwards under the guard's jaw in what would be a perfect example of a zombie killshot.

 

He drops the body and walks onwards, hand wiping away wet blood on his pant leg and muttering a low but forceful _fucking asshole._ Pooch is pretty sure the epitaph isn't directed at their dearly departed guard, but decides to let it slide, he's beginning to feel a lot less charitable towards their wayward sniper right now too.

 

 

 

 

The chaos caused by the sudden demise of their master is actually working for them. No one seems truly in charge but from what their seeing, several people are trying to step up to the plate, and all the in-fighting makes it easier for Pooch and Jensen to slip in. Their occasional take-downs being more likely mistaken for casualties in the struggle for power and currently no one seems to be thinking that they've got an invading force within their walls. Pooch would like to keep it that way, nothing brings assholes together faster than a common enemy.

 

With their bloodily acquired intel they find the room Cougar's being held in fairly quickly, and after a brief one sided fire fight all the men in the room that aren't Losers are dead.

 

Cougar's face is bloody and his hands have seen better days but he looks okay. Pooch glances at Jensen whose grim face is finally cracking into a grin of genuine relief.

 

“Cut him free, then we're outtie.” Pooch orders, and Jensen grins again, this one purely for Pooch and _goddamn_ it's nice to see him in high spirits again.

 

Cougar should have got kittynapped months ago, he's thinking as he watches the door, content that things look like they're going right for once.

 

That's the last thought Pooch has before he hears the sound of fist meeting flesh and then he's turning to see Cougar slug Jensen again, his glasses flying off and sliding across the floor to near Pooch's boots.

 

There's a brief moment where Pooch foolishly believes that that would be it. But then Jensen's swinging at Cougar and Pooch's hopes and dreams crash like they always seems to do.

 

What follows is actually fucking terrible to watch. Pooch definitely yells a lot of variations of _What The Fuck_ and actually tries to get in between the two, break them up at little, but the third time he catches a wayward elbow he resigns himself to waiting out their bitchfit.

 

Which does eventually end when Jensen throws a beautiful punch that breaks Cougar's nose. For a moment Pooch fears they're going to continue, but the suddenness of the break seems to have snapped Cougar out of whatever violent funk he'd fallen into. After a bit of harsh nursing – Jensen - straightening Cougar's rapidly swelling nose – Pooch hands Jensen his glasses back and strongly recommends they get the fuck out of there.

 

They reach the garage without trouble, Pooch does find himself watching the two in case they want to start up fighting again, but Jensen just seems tired, and Cougar seems happy to seethe angrily to himself. And it's all going not terrible until someone gets behind Jensen.

 

Pooch doesn't see the guy, doesn't see where he comes from, just a vague movement at of the corner of his eye, sees Jensen notice the guy at the same time, and he's turning but the guy's close – too close and his rifles coming up much too slow. Fucking South America was going to get them all killed after all.

 

But then Jensen's face is absolutely _painted_ red his flinching, curling away, a hand coming up to hover over the side of his face like touch could somehow fix it. It takes more than a few passing seconds for Pooch to realize that Jensen's not dead. Jensen's not dead but the man that had gotten the jump on them was, his brain matter and blood all over Jensen's face like the world's most fucked up mud mask.

 

“You okay?” Pooch ask-shouts, but Jensen ignores him in favor of shouting _FUCK!_ a hand cupped over his ear.

 

“J, you good?” He asks again, steadying Jensen and getting a squinty look in return.

 

“What?!” Jensen just about deafens Pooch with his answer.

 

Pooch gives up on speech and lifts a questioning thumbs up.

 

Jensen just scowls at the offending digit like Pooch's put his middle finger up and starts wiping at the mess on his face, but between the oncoming swelling and powder burn the tech's seen better days.

 

Pooch looks back to Cougar for some sort of support but he doesn't look all that sorry and from the way Jensen's eyes follow Pooch's gaze and narrow, he's not gonna be buying any apology that might come from the sniper.

 

It might have been okay, Pooch thinks, if the bastard had at least looked contrite, but Cougar looks almost smug behind his smoking gun.

 

“Yeah, fuck you!” Jensen says too loud as he takes shotgun, slamming the hummer's door behind him and sinking low in the seat.

 

“I don't want to hear it.” Pooch says before Cougar can say something that'll piss them all off more. “Get in the car.”

 

 

 

The car ride back to the safe house, God, Pooch wishes it was silent.

 

Jensen starts talking again, bitching really, Cougar's still mumbling under his breath like a moody teen and Pooch is filled with a sudden burning urge to pull over and murder the both of them. He could quit the entire damned army and never think about any of this ever again.

He entertains the thought for longer than he strictly should;, he'd get away with too, no one would ask any questions. No one ever questions Pooch.

 

He settles for jerking the steering wheel sharply one way and then the other without warning and is rewarded with the sound of two heads _bonk_ ing against windows. Jensen's tirade doesn't even falter, his tone just turns to a _whine_ and Pooch is done.

 

“Shut the fuck up.” Pooch says, suddenly too tired to even put proper emphasis into his words.

 

Regardless of his lack of emphasis, he must sound pretty fucking serious because Jensen's mouth shuts, teeth clicking together audibly.

 

Cougar makes a noise in the back but Pooch catches his eye in the rearview mirror, his murderous look is somewhat lessened by the swelling around his broken nose but Pooch wouldn't care if he was sharpening a knife.

 

He's seething. Fuck they're all seething. Cougar's chest is heaving like he's holding himself back from starting up again.

 

Now Pooch can commiserate with the guy, he knows there's a lot of fucked up shit in Cougar's past, knows the guy doesn't sleep well on the best of nights and Santa Maria stirred up all manner of things that might have usually been kept buried.

 

But at the same time.

 

The two of them are acting worse than two year olds.

 

“I don't want to hear another fucking word from either of you, unless it's a goddamned apology.”

Swear to god, Pooch has a two and three year old and they've never once tested his patience like these two are right now.

 

They don't apologise.

 

Pooch doesn't even try to explain any of it to Clay. Just throws his hands up in the air and fucking waits for their exfil out of this godforsaken town.

 


	3. To The Bitter End

Jensen and Cougar make up. Sometime during leave and maybe a bit just after. Now the corners of Cougar's mouth lifts up when Jensen enters the room. Now Jensen's smirks are conspiratorial, like the joke he always seems to be carrying is shared with the rest of them again.

 

Then because they can't catch a goddamned break they end up in the Honduras and everything yet again goes to shit.

 

Good news, Jensen's new trackers work like a dream. Bad news, Pooch gets shot in the back in middle of an Honduran jungle and comes to in Guam. Why Guam? Fuck if Pooch knows – he does see Roque out in the hospital gardens talking to a guy that looks the sort of shady the Company liked to recruit. Roque disappears for a couple of days after that and Clay spends those days running around more than a man freshly on crutches ought to. But Pooch doesn't ask. Roque's back before Pooch can work up too much worry though, looking unharmed and almost cheery. Clay takes his SIC aside for what looks like a fairly intense conversation, but Pooch is already putting more effort than he should into Jensen and Cougar's thing. He ain't touching the Colonel and the Captain's fucked up symbiosis with a ten foot pole. They can deal with it their own damned selves.

 

Jensen changes after Honduras. Not in a big way. Not at first.

 

Clay calls it a phase, Cougar and Roque don't seem to really notice, and as far as Pooch can tell, Jensen's ignoring it and hoping it goes away. But Pooch calls it like he sees it, and all he sees is a black ops soldier that seems to be almost scared of his gun.

 

Let no one say Pooch doesn't try and broach the subject. He does, more than once, but the first couple of times Jensen all but denies he has a problem. The last time Pooch tries to bring it up, just after Roque copped a bullet graze because Jensen hadn't been covering his sector, Jensen goes on the offensive before Pooch has the chance to say much more than 'Hey, J, man.'

 

He yells at Pooch, several variations of _I don't have a fucking problem_ _ **you**_ _have a fucking problem_ , Pooch lets him wind himself up and then watches the tech slowly run out of steam. Pooch knows the sort of anger you felt when you fucked up, knows that none of them are particularly good at not directing that anger outwards.

 

So Pooch waits it out, til Jensen's chest is heaving and he's glaring at the floor with an angry broken look on his face. Finally Jensen just chokes out a _it won't happen again_ and flees the scene before Pooch can say or do anything.

 

After their next mission, Pooch writes the whole incident up as a definite fuck up on his part. Because maybe if he'd done something different Jensen wouldn't have reached for a gun that wasn't there because he's left it somewhere out of sight and out of mind. Maybe if Pooch had gone after him that long ago day - hugged him or hit him – maybe Pooch wouldn't be driving a gut shot Jensen around in the tray of his truck. Maybe if he'd said something Pooch would have never had to know what Jensen sounds like when he's bleeding out and so damned sorry. Maybe if any of them had stepped up they wouldn't be on the verge of losing the first tech guy they've ever really meshed with, who had truly been a Loser.

 

Pooch will admit the silent treatment when Jensen comes back is cruel and unusual. But he's afraid if he tries to talk, tries to fall back into their usual jokey companionship, Pooch is going to lose his shit and say some things that he doesn't mean and yet really does. Things that aren't meant to be said out aloud if he truly wanted to keep Jensen on team. And he must because he bites his tongue, just navigates around Jensen like they're not really even acquaintances. Tries to ignore the hurt slump of his shoulders and the way he's slowly shrinking away from the rest of the team.

 

When they're done with this mission, Pooch decides, he's gonna sit them all down and have words with each and every single one of them. At least the mission's going easy, a supposed cakewalk that's got them in the surburbia of a large Midwest city in what's either a terrorist cell hunt or some personal vendetta the CIA has recruited them into. It didn't matter, either way, they've got their job and they'll do it well regardless of how shady its origin.

 

Jensen, currently hiding in their safe house's basement surrounded by his computers and several years worth of their target's financial records to go through. Pooch sees Cougar go down a couple of times. Once with Jensen's M4, the second time he goes down with a sour look and Jensen's accursed Honduran General's gun. The piece that started this, Pooch sometimes wonders if they should throw the fucking thing away. But then, he also thinks, that for all Jensen's sudden inability to keep a gun on him, he's still got this thing in his pack, still carries it around on missions, and maybe that means something is salvageable in all this mess.

 

Pooch watches Roque slink down stairs and come back looking no less annoyed, but not looking angrier either, and maybe there's some hope left still.

 

He's still feeling pretty hopeful when the front door smashes in and the windows explode as many tactically dressed men enter.

 

It's very embarrassing.

 

They all – minus Jensen – sir silent like chastised children, hands zip tied, kneeling on carpet they probably should have stopped walking on with their boots because it was full of sand that were currently digging into Pooch's knees. That's all Pooch is thinking about when the men discover Jensen's basement hideout, and Jensen answers with a loud volley of gunfire.

 

The second exchange of fire makes Pooch glad that no one thought to make one of them go through the door first, he tries not to think about how shitty that would be. He kind of wishes they had when they trap Jensen in the basement and set fire to the house. Then he wouldn't have to see this.

 

The safe house makes for an effective bonfire, Pooch can see smoke billowing, thick and dark, as he's shoved into the back of a van.

 

Beside Pooch, Cougar is a rigid statue. Shut down and lost in the hell of his thoughts.

 

When they're finally dragged out of the dark of the van, Pooch catches a brief glimpse of a tall pillar of smoke in the distance before they're shoved towards the warehouse they're parked in front of. _Shit._

 

Cougar moves and one of their captors in down and dead before Pooch even registers the movement. The assholes come down pretty heavily on the sniper after that. Somewhere Clay is yelling, Pooch can hear the gravelly growl of Roque's threats and Cougar's on the ground - silent – Pooch tries to do _something,_ gets a rifle butt to the back of the skull for his troubles. The world dims, he doesn't fall but nor can stop himself from being dragged away from the rest of his team.

 

He doesn't see anyone but the man punching him in the face until Roque is suddenly behind him and there's a knife is jutting out the side of the guy's throat. Roque's face twists angrily and with a sharp sideways motion almost decapitates the guy.

 

“How?” Pooch asks as Roque cuts him free.

 

Roque's face is looking better than Pooch's probably looks – one of Pooch's eyes is making a fierce attempt at swelling completely closed - but Pooch can't work out how he's free and here.

 

“We drew straws.” Roque says, not explaining a damn thing and already looking ready to move on and kill as many people he can find.

  
“Cougar?” Pooch asks, because that's the only thing might makes sense, he thinks.

 

“Jensen.”

 

“Jensen?!”

 

Roque's shoulder lifts in a half shrug like he hasn't just said something unbelievable.

 

“He's a wily little fuck.” He says with another half shrug, slipping back to the door, ready to find someone else to knife. “Remind me that if I ever try to kill him for real, yeah?”

 

“ _Jensen_?” Pooch asks again, because the hacker is surely burnt and dead in the safe house hours ago.

 

“Yeah. He's rocking some serious blackface too,” Roque seems downright talkative even if his words aren't making a lick of sense. Just a nasty smile creeping back onto his face and then adding, unnecessarily. “Don't get too offended though, not sure it's on purpose.”

 

Pooch frowns, maybe he's concussed, that would explain how little of this conversation he's actually following.

 

“He was screaming about fucking Prius'. Seemed damned offended about them,” Roque laughs. “Could hear him shouting all up and down the halls, good five minutes before he smashes through my door and pops the guy working on me in the face. Fucking beautiful.”

 

Pooch follows Roque, desperately wishing he had a weapon as they pass more than a few shot up bodies.

 

“He's a good shot when he's all riled up. We should set him on fire more often.”

 

“That's not funny, Roque.” Pooch says with a flat look, still only just sort of accepting that Jensen's alive.

 

“Too soon?” That nasty grins back again, maybe this time for good.

 

“Don't think coz I only got one eye, I won't be able to hit you.”

 

“All right, all right.” Roque don't look all the apologetic but Pooch doesn't have the heart to press any further. Roque with a knife and no ROE is a happy man and Pooch is feeling positively charitable given the current turn of events.

 

He can't truly believe Jensen's fine, maybe doesn't believe it really not until they group back up with the rest of the team, and Pooch lays eyes on a dazed looking Cougar being hovered over by a soot covered, smoke stained Jensen. The tech throws a grin at Pooch and Roque as they come up on the trio, but doesn't see all that keen on leaving the sniper any time soon.

 

Jensen's maybe being more handsy than he might usually be, but Cougar doesn't seem to mind much. Even Pooch can see Cougar's using his beat up state as an excuse to lean most of his weight against Jensen as he helps him up. They all stumble out of this cliché motherfucking warehouse together, Roque and Pooch splitting off to find some sort of transpo.

 

It's fate, Pooch decides as he and Roque stumble across a pink van, doors unlocked and nestled in an alley not too far from their warehouse.

 

“No,” Roque says in the tone of a man who knows all hope is lost.

 

“Aww, yeah.” Pooch answers gleefully, making quick work of the van's wiring, getting her started and headed back to the rest of their team before Roque gets a chance to do much more than grumble about this truly atrocious mode of transportation he is being asked to suffer.

 

 

 

 

Afterwards, after everyone's confirmed good and alive, all a little bruised and battered but gloriously alive, all reports in and the brass and company are left to decide what all this means for their mission, they retire back to what is supposedly truly a safehouse this time. Most everyone's asleep but Pooch is tiredly watching a late night movie, enjoying the brain numbing nothingness it encourages, when Jensen gets out of his third shower – maybe finally completely soot free – and drops down on the couch beside Pooch with the sort of sigh that says he's got something to say and Pooch is his chosen audience.

 

“Sorry it took me so long to get you guys.” Jensen says, scowling a funny little wrinkling of his nose. “There was like no fucking traffic, and I think I might've looked like a total serial killer.”

 

“I think we'll forgive you.” Pooch says wryly, like there was even an option of not.

 

“But then this smart car stops.” He says it bewildered, like it was the weirdest thing that he'd ever seen in all of his days.

 

“...like a Prius?” Pooch already knows he has no idea where this conversation is going.

 

“ _It was so quiet._ ” Jensen whispers, eyes wide, and Pooch can't tell whether he means it as a pro or a con or just something that he needed to say. “And first I was like, **no one can ever know**. But then I was all, _Pooch_ , Pooch will understand my shame.”

 

“You had to tell someone.” This conversation was going in his memory bank as one of the weirder ones, The Pooch has not had enough sleep to be conversing with Jensen.

 

“ **I had to tell someone!** Pooch, It was killing me, and everyone else is still doing the whole 'I thought you were dead, sorry I have so little faith in your inherent badassness Jensen' thing,” Jensen rolls his eyes like the idea of people doing the caring thing is ridiculous. “Not one of them would appreciate what sort of car featured in my epic rescue adventure.”

 

He turns then, putting hands heavily on Pooch's shoulders, looking him dead in the eye.

 

“Share with me, Pooch, this hilarious shameful secret, I came to the rescue in a mother fucking Prius.”

 

Pooch returns the motion, hands on Jensen's shoulders - their arms in horribly convoluted Gordian knot – and promises, “And I will never let you live it down.”

 

 

Later, when the movie has ended, and the one after that, and the channels trying to convince anyone watching to go to bed by only airing terrible home shopping trash, when they're both tired and not quite awake but not going to sleep any time soon, Pooch asks seriously why Jensen had come to him. Cougar could probably have done with the cheering up.

 

But Jensen just shrugged, attention on the laptop propped up on his knees. Pooch makes a whining noise to further his desire to have his question answered, and Jensen's eyes flicker to him for the briefest moment.

 

“Pooch, you are the chillest motherfucker I know. You're going to outlive us all, _and_ you'll survive it.”

 

This is not where Pooch expected this conversation. Pooch hates this conversation. Regret. Instant regret. It's too late-early for this sort of hard truth.

 

“And while my legacy will be a shining icon for all of man to aspire to, the image of me, in a fucking Prius, keeps my memory humble."

 

 _Oh,_ _thank God_ is all Pooch can think as the conversation does a u-turn away from the serious. He can do this. He can do this and _not_ fuck it up.

 

“What is your damned hard on for Prius'?”

 

“ _It was so quiet._ ” He says it again in his weird hushed whisper, like it was the only thing that was keeping him from hysterically laughing. Pooch just has to presume there's more to this story than he will ever hear, or else it was one of those manic moments that has stuck in Jensen's head and blown itself all out of proportion. Which, considering how he'd spent the previous day, maybe a little bit of maniacal amusement was good for him.

 

“You're putting too much thought into it.” Pooch says finally, a hand patting absently at the nearest limb.

 

“Yeah?”

 

“And, Jensen? I am not ever making an effigy to your memory.”

 

“Damn shame.” Jensen whines, fingers typing up a storm, a second (Third? Fourth? _Fifth?_ ) wind gripping him. Pooch studies the screen's reflection in Jensen's glasses, a logo looks familiar amidst a lot of hacking codes.

 

“Are you seriously hacking Prius?”

 

“Shut up or I'll make you wait to watch The Walking Dead when it comes out on blu-ray like some sort of animal.”

 

Pooch shuts up, sinking lower into the couch. _Maybe he is going to sleep,_ he thinks, eyes sliding closed, the soft sound of keystrokes somehow lulling him into blackness.

 

 

 

 

Afghanistan.

 

The last time, though Pooch doesn't know that yet.

 

Cougar's doing his cat-sleeping-in-sun impression, stretched out in their tents opening, where the last of the day's sunlight is warm but not burning.

 

“We're moving out tonight, Clay's gone off to HQ with a serious look.” Pooch says as he enters the tent, avoiding stepping on the sleeping sniper.

 

“I ain't heard nothing.” Jensen says, like he hasn't had his head in his pulled apart computer for the last hour or so.

 

“Scout's honor.” Pooch snipes back with an approximation of what he half remembers a scouting salute to maybe look like.

 

“Oh yeah? You gotta badge for gratuitous duct tape use?” Jensen snarks back like the sarcastic little motherfucker he is.

 

“Gratuitous, my ass.” Pooch will defend his duct tape usage until the day someone pries it from his cold dead hands.

 

Cougar snorts a noise of amusement, a content smile on his face as he watches the two of them through half lidded eyes.

 

Cougar never smiles like that again. Not after.

 

 

They die in that desert, not more than a few days later, sun rising beautifully in the west, their skin still chilled from the night just passed.

 

They explode in the sky and five ghosts walk hundreds of miles out of the shitty desert and shittier mountains. Like shades that don't know they're dead yet, they flee the scene of the crime, running on empty but refusing to stop until there's almost a country between them and what's happened.

 

Pooch spends his death march wandering if it's just them that's cursed. Not places. Not missions. But them. Cursed right down deep in their bones, where they could never completely root it out.

 

 

After, Cougar equal parts pushes Jensen away and clings to him like he's the last sane thing left in this world. But, and Pooch knows Jensen sees it too, the sniper isn't apart of this world, not any more. Their escape from the jaws of death, merely a stay of execution.

 

Pooch doesn't know how Jensen does it, how he can smile and joke, make light hearted banter with someone whose merely breathing. Someone whose so sure he should be dead that all he lives for is the chance to maybe hurt the one that did this to them.

 

It's a different sort of strength, Pooch figures. Jensen, who can grit his teeth and survive, who walks through hell and doesn't even need to be CasEvac'd out. Who takes all the shit that gets thrown his way and still smiles, still makes the effort to make the rest of them smile.

 

Pooch had never thought of it as anything other than a gift, a fleeting ray of sunlight in the ever darkening skies of their lives. Now, he wonders.

 

But they're all going to die and if they're lucky it'll be unknown and unnamed. Their fate gone so significantly sideways that a nameless death would be a blessing to their loved ones. Pooch might talk the big talk, talks about  _after_ , but even he truly believes their best outcome is taking out this Max asshole when they go.

 

Pooch thinks he can be okay with that. Hopes the fact that the world will be a better place for his girls with someone like Max out of it, hopes that belief will weigh against his dreams and disappointments. Because all he wants to do is take his family and _run_. For all the Colonel's speeches of _It's personal_ , Max doesn't give a fuck about them. They're nothing, and they'd probably continue to be if they flew under the radar for the rest of their lives.

 

They'd just have to live with themselves. And whatever fucked up evil plan Max would execute unstopped if not for them.

 

So Pooch stays. Hopes he can hold this fucked up family of brothers together long enough to do what they have to do. Hopes he doesn't have to see all of their sparks fizzle out and die like Cougar's seems to have.

 

And sometimes. When it's late and he's not sleeping again, when he's tired and frustrated and as hopeless as a man can be while still being able to keep moving forwards, he dreams that maybe the _can_ make it. That the grey in Clay's hair will come purely from the passing of time, that Roque's absences could be easily explained by the companionship of a pretty girl. That Jensen will get old, the kind of old that comes from actual age not experience, that his smiles and goodwill would be given freely, not as a bandaid on the rest of the team's hemorrhaging psyches. Pooch daydreams about a Cougar that learns to smile again, whose silent presence becomes a comfort again, and not the constant cause for concern that it is now.

 

Sometimes, on those dark long nights, in this house that's not theirs, in this country that wouldn't welcome them if it knew they'd crossed its borders, on those nights Pooch's mind wanders to a place where maybe he gets to see his little girls grown into little women. Where the lines on his wife's face are from laughter and where he and his brother in law don't get along for petty reasons.

 

Pooch can't really imagine them all retired, but on the edge of sleep, wracked with exhaustion, he can think up a hazy afternoon; beer, maybe something on the grill. Jensen offering to make it hotter even though Pooch has _never_ taken him up on that offer, Cougar quiet but content, Roque and Clay maybe arguing about Clay's newest, most dubious girlfriend, kids running around and underfoot.

 

No rush. No deadline.

 

Then he hears Cougar's breathing pick up, an instantly awake Jensen, voice low, audible but unintelligible. The sound of Cougar getting up, pacing around this shitty house like there was a distance he could travel to get away from their present situation. The low glow from Jensen's laptop shines under Pooch's door and tonight, like every night since that day in the desert, when the sun was blotted out by the burning bodies of BlackHawk and children, Jensen wouldn't be sleeping any more this night.

 

Pooch stares at the light for a long while, the details of his waking dream fading in the reality of wakefulness. Pooch sighs, a hurt noise that seems impossibly loud to his own ears, echoing in the silence between soft keyboard strokes and the softer footfalls of a stalking sniper.

 

He sighs again, more of a heavy breath, chest suddenly tight, and closes his eyes to the dark and lonely glow.

 

One way or another this mission will end and Pooch means to see it through to the bitter end, feels this with sort of resolve only the severely wronged could feel.

 

He _would_ see this through, he thinks again, the thought neither happy or sad, nor angry, just a quiet certainty with maybe a touch of melancholy for futures lost forever.

 

He sighs one last time, lets the soft sounds of his team mates trying to make it through the night lull instead of grate, then, and only then, Pooch rolls over and goes the fuck to sleep.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i will, sometime soon, be posting some small snippets in a separate work which will mostly be drabbles and things written from the wrong points of view.
> 
> thankyou for reading

**Author's Note:**

> Hey. Its been 5? years since I fell into this fandom, exploded all over it and wandered off to other pastures. But this. Ugh, this, I started writing it not long after I finished The Eight in Your Hand, because I love Pooch and I was annoyed by my lack of Pooch writing. While most of it has been written&rewritten this year, there may be some small writing changes – my turn of phrase is a goddamned fast evolving thing ugh – but hopefully there won't be anything too jarring.  
> But this? This is for those who are still follow me even tho I keep posting in odder and odder fandoms.


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